First To Finish, Wins

Category: Philantrophy

Businessman Gregory James Aziz has breathed new life into the once-great railroad freight car production company National Steel Car. The Hamilton, Ontario, Canada based company was founded in 1912 and had developed a reputation for the highest quality designing, engineering and manufacturing of railroad freight cars. But the company had fallen on hard times until Gregory J Aziz, a native of London, Ontario, purchased the company in 1994. Aziz, now National Steel Car’s president, CEO and chairman, has revived both the company and the Hamilton community with his vision and generosity.

Greg Aziz earned a degree in economics from the University of Western Ontario. After graduating in 1971, he went to work with the wholesale food business his family owned called Affiliated Foods. For the next 16 years Gregory J Aziz helped Affiliated Foods to grow and expand. By the 1980s, the company had a client list that included large wholesale food markets all over Eastern Canada and throughout the U.S. Affiliated Foods was importing fresh food from South and Central America, Europe and other places around the world. Once he felt his family was financially secure, Greg Aziz began researching business opportunities of his own.

He set his sights on National Steel Car. After reaching out to sources of financing in New York, Greg Aziz was able to get the money he needed to purchase the company from Dofasco. He then focused on rebuilding National Steel Car and the community in which it is located. Gregory James Aziz began by increasing the company’s staff by 2,400 from just 600 to over 3,000. The company has also embraced the company’s legendary expertise in engineering and world-class production. By focusing on human and capital investment, team building and increased manufacturing capacity, National Steel Car has increased production from 3,500 to 12,000 cars per year. View More Information Here.

National Steel Car is once again among North America’s top railroad freight car manufacturing company. It’s the only one certified ISO 9001:2008. The company has received this certification 18 years in a row. Plus, since 1996, National Steel Car has received the award from TTX SECO for the highest quality freight cars. And the Hamilton community has benefitted as well. Gregory James Aziz gives generous donations to local food banks, the Salvation Army, the United Way, the Hamilton Opera, the Aquarius Theatre and many other organizations and causes in Hamilton.

Over the past two decades, Gregory Aziz has become a household name in the Canadian railroad industry. He recently purchased and helped one of the only remaining rolling stock companies get out from the clutches of bankruptcy, and he has completely turned the outcome of this company on its head. Thanks to his leadership and skills as a CEO, Gregory J Aziz has kept the backbone of North America alive and over 3,000 people in work.

All of his successes are due to Gregory J Aziz’s knowledge of business and ability to form new relationships with customers and suppliers. He first found out about his abilities in these areas while working at Affiliated Foods, a local food distribution company located in his home province of Ontario, Canada. There, he quickly rose through the ranks and started several new initiatives. At the time Affiliated had only been working with local customers and had been importing most of its food from North America. He grew this distribution network to South America and Europe, and within a few years, he was even selling to companies in the United States.

In 1994, Aziz purchased National Steel Car from the previous owner and started his revival of the railroad industry. National Steel Car had been around since 1912, and it had survived every major twist and turn the economy threw its way. However, with more and more customers turning to alternative logistics companies instead of railroads, orders for the rolling stock and railcars that NSC builds every day declined. Aziz had a plan to fix this.

The first order of business was to change the company’s focus from cheap cars to high-quality and perfectly engineered rolling stock. Customers didn’t just want a deal anymore, they wanted assurances that these cars would last forever and that they would always be able to pass regulatory inspections. Gregory J. Aziz hired over 2,000 more workers, many of them engineers, and increased capital funding for new projects and equipment. Click Here for additional information.

Now, National Steel Car has returned to prominence in an industry that is only just surviving around it. NSC increased its capacity by over 300 percent under the new CEO and Chairman, and it employs around 3,000 people. The company makes a healthy $200 million in revenues each year, and it is one of the only rolling stock manufacturers left. National Steel Car has contracts with all of the major railroads in North America, and it constantly receives the TTX SECO award for high-quality manufacturing in Ontario. Thanks to Gregory James Aziz, National Steel Car has never been better.